Stereoscopic images provide to viewers the perception of viewing three dimensional images by showing offset versions of an image to the left and right eyes of a viewer. The images shown to each eye are rendered to mimic the different views captured by the left and right eyes of the viewer to provide the user the perception of viewing a three dimensional image. When combined with panorama rendering techniques, stereoscopic imaging techniques can provide to viewers the perception that they are immersed in a fully surrounding environment. Computational requirements associated with rendering the images of a stereoscopic panorama may be prohibitive for providing users rich gameplay or playback of panoramic videos without sacrificing image quality. The computational resource issue may be further exacerbated because mobile devices, with their small form factors, may provide an excellent display for showing stereoscopic images but lack the computational power of larger laptop and desktop machines. Further, conventional techniques may introduce distortions to the stereoscopic images, reducing realism and damaging the illusion of an immersive environment.
These and other drawbacks exist with conventional stereoscopic capture and render techniques.